


connor has a jealous moment

by mootmuse



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, connor thinks about rk900 with 'it' pronouns for reasons this fic doesn't go into, deviancy is hard for connor ok he'll work all his shit out eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 20:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mootmuse/pseuds/mootmuse
Summary: There's no drama. Hank just gives him a little pep talk about it.





	connor has a jealous moment

**Author's Note:**

> I saw an artist do an inktober drawing for 'jealous connor' and this has nothing to do with what they drew but I found myself imagining what I'd do with the prompt. To my shock, that resulted in fic. Maybe I'll master some of my longer wips one of these days. For now, here's this.

Connor’s back is perfectly straight, as are his shoulders. His feet are shoulder width apart. His hands are clasped behind his back, and he is perfectly still. He looks straight ahead, in the general direction of RK900s desk. 

Richard. Richard’s desk. The RK900 was recovered by the deviant forces before it’d been properly woken by CyberLife staff. It had named itself. 

Hank straightens from Richard’s desk. He smiles, then he claps Richard on the shoulder. He walks back toward their desks. Connor watches him expressionlessly. 

“Richard was able to figure out everything we needed.” It’s almost a question, the way Connor says it. He moves his eyes to watch Hank sink down into his chair, instead of moving his head. Hank eyes him. 

“Yeah, he used that fancy… whatever you guys do, I can’t keep up with all your high tech gadgets.” 

“Not my high tech gadgets,” Connor says, moving his hands to his sides, bending his knees, sitting down. His feet are flat on the floor. His back is straight. He looks at his desk’s computer. “He’s my upgrade, remember.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Hank draws the words out, thoughtful and slow. His chair creaks. There’s a quiet sucking noise and Connor doesn’t have to look up to know that Hank is leaning back in his chair, still watching Connor, and that he’s sucking at the gap between his teeth. “Forgot about that whole thing. But I bet you didn’t, huh?” 

“It’s much more difficult for an android to forget things than it is for humans,” Connor confirms, searching through files and watching the search results on his screen intently. 

“I went to him cause we’re stuck on the case,” Hank says in that slow tone Connor recognizes from watching Hank’s work in the interview rooms. He recognizes the way Hank says it, like he’s moulding his words into the edges of a slow, creeping trap. 

There’s nothing to trap, here. There’s nothing here to pin down. Connor ignores it. 

“Cause he could do something we couldn’t,” Hank goes on. “Something you couldn’t.” 

Connor taps on the keyboard in front of him, typing rapidly. The noise of it’s loud, the keys stiff from disuse. He watches his fingers move; he has to hit the keys hard to get his input to register. 

“And if you’ll tell me what he found,” Connor says, crisp, when it becomes clear he’ll have to be the one to break the edges of Hank’s slow, patient silence, “I’ll be able to put it in the system so we can get on with solving it. The captain’s impatient with our progress.” 

“Ah, that fucker wouldn’t know what  _ patient _ looked like if it walked up behind him and slapped him on the ass,” Hank says. A dialogue prompt appears in the corner of Connor’s vision, asking if he wants to tell Hank how little sense that made. 

He doesn’t. He dismisses it. 

“Connor,” Hank says. Tone: plaintive, frustrated. It isn’t a request. There’s no reason to answer.

“Come on Connor, just drag me out back and kick my ass so we can get this over with, I can’t deal with you bein all jealous like this.” 

“I’m not-” 

Connor’s fingers pause over the keyboard. His eyebrows furrow. His mouth parts, just a little; his eyes move over to Hank. 

He sees Hank’s posture relax a little. He watches Hank’s expression soften. 

“Yeah,” Hank says very quietly, volume just between the two of them. “That’s what that feels like. All nasty and sour inside you, right?” 

“I don’t know what sour feels like,” Connor murmurs, watching him. Hank shrugs. 

“It’s how I felt when you guys started gettin shipped into the department,” Hank says, and a portion of the attention Connor’s been paying to their environment reallocates itself to Hank. Hank doesn’t talk about his past attitudes casually, except on bad days. This isn’t a bad day, Connor’s fairly sure. 

“All sour, y’know, angry. Like it wasn’t fair. Doesn’t feel good, bein upgraded.” 

“None of the PC models were ever intended as replacements, Hank.” 

“Sure, that was the party line. But you look at the recruitment rates before and after we bought all those androids, and how many officers the next few years went into early retirement. I saw the writing on the wall. And then, when you walked that plastic ass in through the door, well-” Hank raises his eyebrows and blows a puff of air out through his lips, looking at Connor pointedly. 

“I wasn’t intended as your replacement either, Hank.” 

“The hell you weren’t. Look, do you think of me as, uh- dragging you down or whatever the fuck cause I can’t detect twenty different particulates by lickin the grossest shit in the room, or pull up surveilance footage just by thinkin about it? Gettin permission to pull footage like you do used to take a whole day. Sometimes longer, if it was owned by some big company like CyberLife. And the forensic shit, I’d have to wait weeks to even see some of that processed. That makes me a hell of an outdated model.” 

Connor’s shaking his head before Hank even finishes, turning away from the computer to lean toward him. “Ninety percent of the conclusions I come to with that technology are conclusions you came to first, or concurrently. I’d argue that my abilities as an android only just allow me to keep up with you. No amount of advanced technology can work as a substitute for an officer with your degree of expertise.” 

“Connor-” Hank pauses, grimacing. Connor watches for a few seconds. It’s not a new sight, the skin of Hank’s face starting to turn that very faint and blotchy pink. Not new, but fascinating. 

After those seconds Hank huffs, shaking his head. “Shit. Forgot what I was gonna fuckin say. Stop tryin to distract me before I finish my pep talk, you weasley little bastard.” 

It takes Hank another second to meet Connor’s eyes, so Connor doesn’t insist. 

“Anyway,” Hank says, pretending he’s recovered. “You don’t mind that I’m not the newest, hottest shit, is what I’m saying. So…”

He gestures to Connor. “I’m following,” Connor assures him and then, deciding not to resist, he adds, “you’re comparing my experiences to yours. But if that means you expect me to make Richard the most rewarding friendship of my life, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you.” 

“Jesus,” Hank mutters. He leans back, his chair squeaking, as he looks away and runs a hand over his face. “Fuckin… ‘s what I get for tryin to be nice. Can you focus?” 

“Of course,” Connor says, and sits up straight, and looks at Hank, his eyebrows raised in expectation. 

Hank huffs. Hank shakes his head. “Little shit,” he mutters, and then says, “Look, you get what I’m saying though, right? Him helping us out with this case, all that means is he’s part of the same, you know, the same big machine we are, just another cog in the wheel. So what, he can do shit we can’t. If that doesn’t say anything bad about me, it doesn’t say anything bad about you. Besides, you’re gonna have to get used to him eventually. We do kinda have to work with the guy.” 

Connor looks at Richard. The light, deliberately attentive look fades off of his face. His eyebrows furrow. “I don’t…” he starts, slow, and pauses to make sure of himself. “I don’t think I’d react well if you did more than that, working with him. If you were friends with him.”

There’s a moment that - Connor looks away from Richard to check - Hank spends watching him. Hank looks thoughtful.

“Well,” Hank says, standing, and moves closer. “Can’t promise that, Connor. But I think you got a while to get used to the idea before it happens, me havin android friends; guy’s a pretty cold fish. Worse than you- well, worse than you used to be.” 

Hank claps Connor on the shoulder and, before Connor’s got time to really process the warm maybe-feeling from the compliment, the verbal confirmation that Connor’s gained a skill RK900 lacks, Hank is pulling him up to his feet. 

“Come on, we’re takin an early lunch.” 

“The Chicken Feed?” 

They walk a moment while Hank looks over at Connor, almost seems to analyze him. “Nah. Dog park, maybe. Or maybe a pet store, you can tell me more about all the weirdo fish. Y’know, I bet that Richard guy doesn’t give half a shit about fish.” 

Hank grins at him. Connor blinks. The pause to open the doors leading to the parking lot give him a moment to process. 

“We have no way of knowing that,” Connor points out, starting to smile. 

“Yeah, well. I’d rather hear what you have to say about em, anyway,” Hank says briskly, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and starting down the steps. “Hack my phone real quick, mark out a good place on the GPS.” 

It doesn’t take Connor much thought to do it. A little of his free processing power he dedicates to imagining the RK900, sitting by itself at its desk being a cold fish while Connor and Hank go out to watch some live ones. Connor isn’t sure of the name of the feeling that seeps into him, thinking that. He has his suspicions. 

He thinks he likes it. He’ll ask Hank, maybe, later. For now he gets in the car, and sits beside Hank, and watches his partner as he drives. 


End file.
